& a short review.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHSNdMzdSno


With the gradual shift to F2P shooters, Crysis 3 may be one of the last of the 'old school' - AAA budget, ferocious arena gameplay, day 1 purchase model, rentable dedicated servers, RCON control, etc.

In that sense, it has a lot resting on its shoulders. The engine may have to last us a while and luckily, being a Crysis game, is well placed to do so. How does the gameplay stack up so far?

Crysis 2 was already a great and somewhat underrated multiplayer game, perhaps burdened by people's expectation of the series as a singleplayer showcase of a stunning engine.

If anything, Crysis 3 does successfully improve on the formula. I like that sprinting no longer drains suit energy in the way it once did, leading to a relentless Quake 3-esque pace to the movement. Granted, this takes away a little tactical nuance. In the past, it was possible to 'pounce' on someone at the end of their sprint before reaching the Crash pod point, just in that vulnerable window of opportunity as they pause to charge energy before entering the fray.

However, subtleties like that are outweighed by the overall boost to the action. By maintaining the fast pace, the game directly calls out to all those for whom the words Quake and Unreal conjure up a warm, fuzzy feeling.

As to the new abilities, generally they seem streamlined and more logical. Giving everyone the air stomp as an inbuilt suit ability is a nice touch and actually helps people attacking a point from the ground too, since all the defenders are constantly having to watch ledges and vantage points for inevitable - and incredibly cinematic - stomp spam.

For me, the jury is still out on the new Hunter mode. I noticed it was a little unpopular in some of the 'First Looks' from Eurogamer or PC Gamer. However, I think it has its place. It's probably most fun played between friends. The incessant, panic-inducing proximity alert on the cell soldiers is done perfectly, and it's a genuine thrill as a hunter to listen to the effect it has on your friends on Teamspeak, as you creep up on them.

The only things I really felt missing are a robust anticheat (the odd blatant speed hacker and suchlike were noticeable, if not common) and a /record function. As I understand it, the anticheat wasn't implemented in the beta but in the full game hackers will risk having Origin accounts banned, which is a good step forward. The /record function (and for the matter a spectator mode) would be very useful for leagues, tournaments and other things of that ilk.



A word about hardware:


With two 680s in SLI I was aiming for as close as possible to a 120fps refresh when playing the beta. For the most part the cards were getting close to that on Very High, although turning on heavy anti-alising put it more in the 70-100 range. Interestingly, the bottleneck when not using heavy anti-alising was mostly the 3960X @4.8Ghz, especially during hectic moments on the Crash site point.

There's a tendency on hardware sites to push the notion that CPUs are overpowered for what we need in gaming. That may be true for those who are happy with 30fps - but anyone looking to maximise frames at Vey High preset on a 120hz monitor will find that they'll need a very high-revving CPU (the extra cores and cache of the SB-E series won't help, alone).

You either have never played Quake or were never at least a decent player. Plus, if Crysis players wanted a game more like Quake, they'd play Crysis Wars, not Call of Crysis.

Well obviously it isn't Quake - something like Nexuiz is going closer to that legacy. But for people who want a hint of that legacy whilst still within the confines of a more, dare we say it, COD-esque framework, Crysis 3 does well.

Accepted though, I don't want to give a Q3A player the wrong impression - though clearly watching the video no one is going to actually think this is the same movement as Quake or an original arena shooter, rather something that hints towards that sort of legacy, compared to the pace of most big budget modern shooters.